The Washington Commanders are the subject of a criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in Virginia.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission and several attorneys general accusing them of deceptive business practices. Financial impropriety is being investigated by attorneys general in Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Team spokeswoman Jean Medina gave a statement from an attorney for the Commanders.
"We are confident that after these agencies have had a chance to review the documents and complete their work, they will come to the same conclusion as before."
Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the league, declined to say if the league was aware of the investigation.
Mary Jo White, the former SEC chair, was asked by the NFL to look into it. The review is still going on.
The owner's own alleged sexual assault of a woman on his plane in April 2009, is one of the things that White is investigating. White is not sure when he will finish. The first investigation resulted in a $10 million fine but no written report.
The FTC and the U.S. attorney's office didn't reply to the request.
In a letter to the FTC, the House committee said it found evidence of deceptive business practices over the course of more than a decade. The committee outlined through the testimony of former employees and access to emails and documents a pattern of financial improprieties by the owner and executives of the team. According to the committee, at one point in 2016 the team kept up to $5 million from 2,000 season ticket holders.
According to a former employee, the team had two books, one with under reported ticket revenue and the other with the full picture. According to testimony, Snyder was aware of the numbers shared with the league. Washington's front office had a business practice.
According to other testimony, financial misconduct included making it difficult for season-ticket holders to recover their deposits, counting some of those leftover funds as a different type of revenue that doesn't need to be shared with the league, and shifting money from ticket sales to other events. There was evidence in the data shared by the committee. The letter said that ticket sales from Washington games were shifted to a Kenny Chesney concert and a Navy-Notre Dame football game as a way to juice revenue and keep it off.
Brownlee said that the Washington Commanders have cooperated with federal and state investigators since the House Oversight Review Committee sent a letter to the FTC. In response to the requests, the team produced tens of thousands of records. The investigations are based on baseless allegations made by a disgruntled former employee who is represented by a law firm.
Bank of America Securities has been hired by the team's owners to look into potential transactions. It's not clear if those transactions are related to the sale of the team or the pursuit of minority partners.
The Associated Press contributed to the report.
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